Happy Burger

He supposed it was the sauce, and the way that they cooked the patties, on the uncleaned grill with all the residue from the past. But mostly the sauce. It wasn’t just mayonnaise and ketchup or thousand island like other places, it had some sort of spice added to it, something unmistakable that you never forgot. It had been two months and Russell could almost taste it still himself. That taste had tortured him long enough, the time had come for him to experience it again. He felt he deserved it.
The sign flared from across the street; the orange neon bun, the brown patty, the red tomato, the green lettuce that would burn out occasionally leaving the neon hamburger looking somewhat hollow. Every day on the bus Russell had to look at that sign and he would scowl. He would notice he was scowling and he would look at the people sitting around him on the bus to see of they had noticed it too. He cursed Happy Burger under his breath. He thought about it for a few moments and cursed himself. If he just hadn’t said what he said that night in November, if he could have just thought it, without actually saying it to the counter guy’s face-
It had been a Wednesday night, after a particularly long day at school, one where he had missed lunch because of a test that had gone over. Milo had asked if he wanted to study for an hour or so after their last class but Russell said no, he had to get home to feed his cat. The truth was he had to feed himself. Not having any lunch had left him famished, all he could think about those last few hours was going to Happy Burger and ordering the cheeseburger with a side of onion rings, ranch, and a strawberry shake. When Milo asked about studying Russell felt his stomach hiss and bubble but kept it to himself. At two hundred and forty six pounds he was more than aware that the words ‘I’m starving’ were not allowed to leave his lips.
He had rushed to the bus, building a sweat, and had planned to get off at the stop before his house so he could go straight to Happy Burger. Then his mother had called and complained that she couldn’t find the remote. She accused him of misplacing it, telling him he needed to get his fat ass to the house to find it because she was going miss her show. He protested. He told her he was hungry, but said it in a low voice so the guy in the next seat wouldn’t hear.
“What did’ya eat for lunch?” she demanded.
“I didn’t have any. Class went late.”
“Well good! We all know you could miss a few.”
She hung up and he was so angry and hungry he had felt the tears massing in the corners of his eyes. When the bus passed Happy Burger he looked away. He got off at his stop and walked into the house slow and soft, too hungry to storm in. He found the remote in his room, and he dropped it on the couch next to to his mother where she sat smoking a cigarette. He got back out the door before she could say anything.
By the time he had made it the three blocks to Happy Burger he had decided he was going to have two cheeseburgers instead of the one. His hunger had actually dissipated slightly since school but he felt that he had earned it. It wasn’t just missing lunch that entitled him to two. Riding the bus every day to MJC gave him the right, having to endure the looks and comments and the utter obliviousness of all the girls there entitled him to eat two, one after the other. Putting up with his mother for the last twenty years, that in itself gave him the right to both cheese burgers.
He had stood in line behind three people, trying his best to appear patient. When he got to the counter he looked up at the list written in plastic up on the wall and feigned like he hadn’t made his decision hours before.
“What you get?” the man behind the counter asked.
“Let’s get two cheeseburgers with special sauce. A fries. A strawberry shake.”
Russell had expected a quick confirmation of the order. When none came he brought his eyes down from the menu and looked across the counter. The man behind the counter was older, in his thirties maybe, brown skinned, some sort of Mexican, and he looked at Russell with a vague grin, one thin eyebrow cocked up in judgement.
“Why not three?” the man muttered.
Russell wasn’t sure if he had actually heard him right until he saw the shock spring into the man’s face. It was obvious the Mexican had realized he slipped, becoming too free with his thoughts. Russell looked quickly around to see if anybody else had heard, then glanced down at the floor, catching his own gut and puffy chest concealing his feet.
The son of a bitch. Russel had been coming there for five, six years now, ever since they moved into the apartment eight months after his father died. And this old thirty something loser working at a greasy shit whole for minimum wage had the fucking audacity to make a comment like “why not three?”?
He had to say something, he knew that. There was no way he was walking out of there without saying something. His shrinking stomach sloshing with acids and his plummeting blood sugar demanded it.
“What the hell man!” he said.
He had never really yelled at someone he didn’t know, had never reacted while feeling so perfectly justified. He could have stopped there, just walked away with those few words for the man behind the counter to chew on, but then he said the words that he would regret for the next three months. He had turned to go, only three or four steps to the glass door, then turned around, face red with embarrassment and righteous wrath and bellowed: “I’m never coming back here again!”
He had only just stepped on to the sidewalk outside of the Happy Burger when the regret began to shape inside him. Russell realized he now had to live by those words; he truly could never go back. He went home that night and microwaved two boxes of chicken fingers but there was no joy or satisfaction in eating them. He was still hungry when he was done.
December went by and he was able to distract himself from Happy Burger with sweets and egg nog, but then January came and it got rough. He rode by on the bus and the neon sign glared at him, mocking him. His taste buds ached, some nights he actually woke up and thought of it, imagined putting the buttered bun into his mouth and biting into the perfectly grilled patty. He martyred himself, averting his eyes on the bus and trying to trick himself into thinking that Home Time White Onion, the other burger place in their neighborhood, was just as good.
February finally rolled in and he thought he had it beat. He looked at the neon sign from his seat on the bus and told himself he felt nothing, it was just a sign, and he wasn’t salivating, he was just thirsty. It had been 87 days. He truly felt he had earned it, and really, what did it matter? The Mexican that had made the comment, he probably didn’t even work there anymore, he probably quit, or got fired, or got himself deported. And what was really the big deal about going back? The loss of his dignity? That had gone out the window around third or fourth grade, when he got fat.
So there he was, standing across the street from the neon sign, imagining the sauce he hadn’t tasted in three months. He would get only one burger but he would get the fries and the strawberry shake too. He looked both ways and began to cross. He made it to to the opposite curb before he had a clear view through the glass door, and his heart began to beat against his chest and the hairs all along his neck stood up when he saw the Mexican standing behind the counter.
The man’s dark hair was cut shorter but it was definitely the same man who had made the comment about three burgers. There was something inside Russell that almost turned him, that almost spun him around back home. But no, forget that, he wanted a God damned Happy Burger. In a way it wasn’t even really about tasting the burger again, it was about doing what he wanted, about living his life the way he chose to. He was almost glad the Mexican was there.
It was very unlikely that the man would even remember him, or so Russell thought until he saw the look on the Mexican’s face as he approached. The man’s eyes actually expanded when he saw him, Russell was sure of it, and the man’s posture straighted out. Russell paused at the door and the Mexican stared at him through the glass, looking alarmed. Russell pushed through, wishing there was at least one other customer that night. It was just he and the Mexican, and he could feel the tension hang in the room like fumes from the fryer.
“How are you tonight?” Russell asked.
He hadn’t meant to say anything, he hadn’t wanted to give the man the satisfaction, but the Mexican just stared and Russell felt awkward. Russell glanced up at the plastic menu and then back, only to find the two wide eyes still staring. More than anything it was strange, it gave Russell a bit of the creeps, and this angered him.
“Are you giving me shit?” he asked.
He genuinely wanted to know. The man just stared, and Russell couldn’t tell if the man was mocking him or high or what. Russell had the right to be there, he had the right to eat whatever the hell he wanted.
“I just want something alright? That’s why people come in here, to fucking get something to eat. Do you have some sort of problem?”
The man continued to stare. Russell noticed there were beads of sweat gathered along the Mexican’s brow. The man must remember, he must have been waiting for this moment too.
“I don’t want three by the way, one’ll do fine.”
Russell surprised himself by the rage in his voice. He looked into the Mexican’s face and saw them all; school kids over the years, the teachers, his mother. He had waited three months, he was worthy of it like anybody else. He had the right.
“Are you going to take my order or not?”
The Mexican glanced away for a moment. What in the hell was the prick’s problem? There must have been tons of fat people that came in all the time to get food, people just as heavy if not heavier than Russell.
“I’m n-not leaving until you take my order.”
Russell folded his arms in front of him and waited. Three months ago he had said he was never coming back, now he wasn’t leaving. He was never coming back, but not until he got his burger, it was his right. The Mexican took one step backwards and swallowed. He looked frightened which only made Russell angrier.
“I can’t help that I’m the way I am. It’s my metabolism. Maybe if I ate better I would lose weight. But who has time to exercise? Obviously, you have not gone to school. I’m studying economics. You know what that is?”
Russell could feel the tears in his eyes, all anger. The man looked across the counter at him, more frightened then ever. That’s when Russell heard someone come out of the bathroom.
“That’s enough of this shit,” a voice said.
The man with the pantyhose pulled over his head had a small backpack draped over his shoulder, small enough that it might have been for a child. The gun in his right hand was not small, it was large and silver.
“I told you if somebody come you get the motherfucker out of here,” the man said and pointed the gun at the Mexican.
“Please-”
The man behind the counter had his arms raised, his eyes closed. The man with the mask saw his point had been made and turned the muzzle of the gun towards Russell.
“Now you motherfucker. What the fuck you telling this fool all that bullshit huh?”
Russell was shocked by man’s appearance but wasn’t quite scared. He had worked himself up. He looked straight into the nylon, at the man’s distorted features. His irritation swung from the Mexican to the man in the mask.
“I want a burger,” Russell said.
“I don’t give a shit. Give me your God damn wallet.”
Russell pulled the wallet from the back pocket of his pants but didn’t hand it over. He held on to it, turning back towards the counter.
“I want a burger,” he said to the Mexican. The man’s eyes were wide with terror.
“Hand it over,” the man in the mask said.
He reached for it and the wallet fell to the tiled floor. Russell looked down at it, then back up to the panty hose.
“Stupid fat fuck,” the man said and bent down to pick it up, the gun held at an angle.
Russell looked at the man as he was bent over, the skinny arm reaching out for the wallet, the back of the neck exposed under the nylon. Russell saw bumps along the man’s neck, black heads and stray hairs. ‘Stupid fat fuck’.
As the man brought his body back up, the wallet in his free hand, Russell reached out and pushed. Instinct told Russell to go for the gun but the boiling rage forced him forward, right into the man, pushing the skinny figure backwards. The robber was shocked but stayed upright. Russell threw all his weight forward this time and lost his balance, sending them both to the tile. He didn’t hear the gun shot, the glass in the front of the restaurant just seemed to explode and come crashing down. The deafening sound of it brought Russell’s attention back to the gun. He immediately rolled himself on to the left half of the robber’s body, pinning the gun arm to the floor.
The robber threw the wallet away, reaching his empty hand to get the gun, but Russell’s body was too large and the robber couldn’t reach around it. The man screamed in pain and anger before beginning to throw wild blows against Russell’s side and chest. He was immediately winded, and could only push at Russell, pushing with his arm and his whole body, trying desperately to get free.
Russell didn’t do much, he just lay there, then reached over and pried the gun from the robber’s hand. It popped from the man’s grip and slid along the tile towards one of the tables before the Mexican came around the counter and picked it up.
“Hey man, don’t move,” he said.
“How am I supposed to move with this fat motherfucker on me?”

It took almost twenty minutes for the police to show up. They took a statement from both Russel and the Mexican, who wasn’t actually Mexican, he was Guatemalan and his name was Alex. The cops put the robber in back of one of the squad cars and drove him away, and while Russell and Alex watched them leave a couple of teenagers came in to Happy Burger. The kids eyed the blown out window and the glass that lay shattered all over the tile before looking up at the plastic menu and discussing what they wanted.
“We ain't open right now guys. Come back some other time alright,” Alex said.
The teenagers nodded, then slowly made their back out the door.
“Hey man,” Alex said to Russell. “You still want that burger? It’s on me.”
Russell got the burger to go and made his way back to the apartment. His mother was sitting on the couch smoking a cigarette, watching a talent show.
“Where the hell you been?” she asked.
“I was getting something to eat.”
“Wha’ja do? Walk all the way to China to get a won ton?”
She cackled at her own joke and Russell continued down the hall to his room. He placed the Happy Burger on his desk, next to the computer, and looked at the grease spots forming along the side and bottom of the white paper with the illustration that matched the neon burger sign. He took the burger out, unwrapping it at one of it’s ends, and bit into it. It was good, just like he had imagined it. The sauce was there, tangy, kind of spicy. He sat on his bed and chewed it and then swallowed it. It was just as he hoped but in the end, it was only food.